People will sometimes see ads for $500 Lasik and they’ll think, “Wow, is that really possible?” Generally, Lasik surgery goes for around $2000 per eye, so people are shocked to see the difference. If you stop and think for a minute, you’ll realize that the last pair of glasses you bought may have cost around that much, so it doesn’t seem to make sense. How can a high technology, precision surgery like Lasik cost almost as little as a pair of glasses?
The obvious answer, which I think you already know, is that it can’t. The ads are designed to get you in the door but are deceptive in many ways. Certain chain centers have even received warnings or disciplinary action from the Federal Trade Commission for deceptive advertising. To avoid FTC warnings, what often occurs is that the advertised price is a starting point to which thousands of dollars will be added to the price before surgery can actually proceed.
One tactic that is commonly used is to have a low price available for an older, very limited technology which does not apply to most people. In fact, in my practice, many of the people that might qualify for this cheap surgery, I discourage from having surgery because their vision is already so good that it’s not worth undergoing Lasik. Everyone else with normal prescriptions is told they do not qualify for the $500 surgery because of their higher prescription and the cost ends up being $3000 more than expected.
They also use the sales tactic of up-selling the patient with “optional” benefits which are not truly optional. The surgery itself is billed as one component, but the various parts of the preoperative evaluation and postoperative care are then added onto the price. It is impossible to perform the surgery without doing a complete examination beforehand and follow-up afterward, so the price skyrockets when everything is added up. I had an anesthesiologist friend that used to have a joke: “The cost to put you to sleep for surgery is only $1, but if you want to wake up, the price goes up.” It’s the same with these Lasik surgery chains, but the joke is really on the patient/consumer.
Third, as I’m sure you all know, they use inferior, out dated technology. In fact, the technology that is available for the extremely cheap $500 Lasik is usually VERY old and doesn’t apply to most people that truly need Lasik. How else could it be offered at a price so close to what you already pay for a pair of glasses!! But even the supposed “cutting edge technology” is not the latest available instrumentation, even though they may say it is. These cheap centers continue to use the old razor blade flap cutting technology that all of the highest quality reputable Lasik surgeons abandoned years ago. Why would you want a high speed vibrating razor blade cutting your eye if you could have a high precision, high safety laser do the same thing…only better!!?
Unfortunately, by the time all of this is revealed to the patient, they have been charged a significant, nonrefundable consult fee for an evaluation. If you do proceed with the surgery, the fee is applied to surgery, otherwise it is lost money. Now you are forced to choose an inferior and potentially less safe technology at a much higher cost than you were lead to believe. Wouldn’t it be better to work with a practice that doesn’t deal with shady sales tactics to trap you and that uses only the highest levels of technology? The choice is yours, but you should definitely see somebody like us that will not force a financial commitment on you before you even know what your Lasik surgery choices are.
About the Author: John D. Suson, MD - www.supereyes.com
Dr. Suson holds a clinical faculty appointment in the Department of Ophthalmology at the Medical College of Wiscosin and is in private practice in Milwaukee, WI. His focus in Ophthalmology is refractive surgery, cataracts, and treatment of glaucoma and diabetes.
Dr. Suson is a preferred refractive surgeon for NewSight Laser Network, a network of over 100 Optometrists in southeastern Wisconsin.
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